Only nit-picking English teachers would be interested enough in such problems to take the time and trouble to e-mail the editor to point out that the American and British sound files had been mixed up for the word ‘zoology’, or that the sound file for ‘aesthetic’ did not match the phonetic (or phonemic) transcript. Unfortunately, just as it is extremely difficult to produce a book absolutely free from typos and other errata, it is also difficult to produce perfect sound files, which are an exact audio replication of the phonetic (or phonemic) transcript. Modern technology means that many dictionaries have an accompanying website, a free internet version, or come with a CD-ROM with many additional features, including sound. Most English dictionaries give pronunciation as a matter of course, as English is a tricky language to pronounce, but the fact that there are many varieties of English makes the pronunciation problem even more difficult to deal with and perhaps makes a pronunciation dictionary such as this one vital for some of us. Why do people buy dictionaries? To know what words mean, or to check usage, spelling or pronunciation, or any combination of the above.
